"189 seats is a clear advantage over the A320's 180 seats. It means no matter what our competitors do, we have lower seat costs."

The order couldn't come fast enough for beleaguered Boeing. Last week, Airbus nabbed orders for more than 400 planes, more than half of those coming from a customer that had previously bought only Boeings, Lion Air of Indonesia. And the world fleet of 787s known as the Dreamliner remains grounded because of battery issues.

"Not hard at all. You just compartmentalize that. We've got a lot of people working on the battery situation."

And the numbers bear that out. Boeing had surpassed Airbus last year in orders and deliveries. And it is again leading so far this year, with 191 orders and 83 deliveries to Airbus' 181 orders and 80 deliveries.

"Which is significant because we're not even delivering 787s for Boeing, so theoretically, one can expect deliveries will be even higher for Boeing if they were delivering 787s, which are currently grounded."

And Boeing could get a further lift from its loyal Irish customer. O'Leary saysRyanair will consider buying more than 100 of Boeing's next generation 737 Max airplanes.